Little Robot said:
C2B said:
Wait, aren't these examples more of a simple writing style rather than a bad one.
Metroid Games are usually very simple written, not too bad/obnoxious. A really bad written (but story focused) Metroid Game is Other M. And it got a lot of flak for it- Hate even.
I agree. Simple writing is not necessarily bad writing-- even an absence of writing is not necessarily "bad." Games that are gameplay-focused are allowed to stick writing in the back seat, so can get away with a little bit of cheesiness. However, games like Fallout 3, which focus largely on story and writing, don't have as much of a free pass because there's literally no way to avoid the bad writing.
Well, simple can be bad, especially if you toss around that classification on issues of originality (as simple tends to touch upon archetypal elements of Western narrative done to death, "the hero's journey," etc).
That aside, I'd disagree that Fallout 3 was really about the writing or story. Fallout 3 was about emergent experience, and I feel that was a conscious decision of the developers. The story was a backdrop to exploration and the emergence of one's own narrative in the wasteland (this can be said of Oblivion, Morrowind and Daggerfall as well). However, I will readily agree that Fallout, as a series pioneered by Interplay, has traditionally been about story over emergence (and I believe the expectations we had of Bethesda continuing this are the root of our unhappiness with the end result).
I do get your point though, Metroid or Limbo at least had a consistent world that made sense within the confines of their reality. Fallout 3 lacked sense at nearly every turn (where did settlements get food? Power? Defense? etc). I just don't feel that was intended to be where the "game" resided in Bethesda's head.
At the end of the day, however, I'm fine with the elevation of emergent gameplay over writing or a smartly scripted narrative. Even Chris Avellone has said that he feels emergent moments matter more to players (mainly due to them being "owned" by the players moreso than scripted moments). What I dislike about Bethesda's approach is I feel Todd Howard (or whomever) myopically fixate on the warrior/knight/Rambo-esque approach without giving a fair shake to more experimental character builds (e.g. I tried role playing a cringing cowardly thief in Oblivion and quickly discovered it was anticipated I'd be a warrior, i.e. Kvatch). Fallout 3, for whatever positives I could say, certainly seemed tuned to appeal first to the Ritalin popping, Counter Strike mentality over the non-combat, diplomatic approach.. but a large part was the emphasis on the solo play Bethesda loves so much (i.e. Fallout 2 would probably have demanded a similarly combat-centric approach if you chose to solo the game, due more to forced combat bottlenecks ).
